The CPP gaming community logged on to compete at this fall’s Bronco Esports’ Frag Fest on Nov. 6, as the tournament was streamed live on Twitch. Due to COVID-19 restrictions, this is the first time the popular esports event has been broadcast virtually.
The event featured 11 gaming tournaments ranging from a variety of popular games such as Valorant and Rainbow Six: Siege. The event drew in about 100 competitors and over 300 viewers throughout the tournaments. The club raffled off prizes including gaming headsets and keyboards provided by their main sponsor HyperX, a gaming gear company.
Jakob DeMonaco, director of competition for the club and a third-year computer information systems student, was satisfied with the tournaments’ virtual broadcast.
“Most of the tournament went alright; some tournaments ended up starting later than planned,” said DeMonaco. “But seeing as this was Bronco Esports’ first online event, I think we did alright.”
With this marking the Frag Fest’s first digital broadcast, it posed new challenges for coordinators and club administration to create a similar environment of competitive gaming.
“I thought that Frag Fest being virtual for the first time allowed us as club admins and coordinators to involve more games into our tournament pool,” said Antonious Elamallakh, a second-year civil engineering student and Rainbow Six: Siege coordinator for the club. “Having a portion of this event online would be a good expansion for the club in the future.”
The club, along with its viewers and competitors, faced some issues during the tournaments such as connection issues and time conflicts.
“There were a lot of teams that didn’t show up or had issues getting all their players online, and I’m sad that it was not in-person,” noted Cody Ngo, a first-year electrical engineering student and club member who competed for Team Boshy in the Valorant tournament.
Nonetheless, competitors and club members brought their “A-game” to battle through their conflicts both offline and online, captivating their audiences throughout the internet.
A notable event was the Valorant tournament that started in the afternoon with a nine-team bracket in a 5v5 single elimination, and it did not disappoint. Team 4321 beat Team Boshy by a lopsided score of 12-5. Team 4321 was the seventh seed and defeated their opponents by a double-digit score throughout the tournament.
Philip Ahn, a fifth-year computer information systems student, played for Team 4321 and helped secure its victory. “Well, we wanted to practice as a team and experience how it would be like in a tournament type setting. For us, it was a learning experience more than anything,” said Ahn.
Another popular tournament of the evening was the 6v6 single elimination Rainbow Six: Siege tournament. Team Demon Time stood out from the other 14 teams, coming out victorious in a 2-0 best-of-3 series win against team UTulsa R6 in the final. Demon Times played to their strengths and stayed on the offensive, resulting in their victories with a dominating performance.
Despite the difficulties the club faced throughout the day, Bronco Esports is looking forward to building off a strong start to an even stronger virtual Frag Fest in the spring.
